Does every girl dream of a continuous
courtship and find a dull answer in the facts? I do not
know.

How freely I write to you, seeing that you are blind and
deaf, of that wish of a woman to be the one grand passion of
a strong man's life--above all--before even his country!
What may once have been my own dream of my capacity to evoke
such emotions in the soul of any man I have flung into the
scrap-heap of my life. The man, the one man--no! What was I
saying, Meriwether Lewis, to you but now, even though you
were blind and deaf? I must not--I _must_ not!

Nay, let me dream no more! It is too late now. Living or
dead, you are deaf and blind to all that I could ever do for
you. But if you be still living, if this shall meet your
living eyes, however cold and clear they may be, please,
please remember it was not for myself alone that I took on
the large ambitions of which I have spoken to you, the large
risks engaged with them. Nay, do not reproach me; leave me
my woman's right to make all the reproaches. I only wanted
to do something for you.

I have not written so freely to any man in all my life. I
could not do so now did I not feel in some strange way that
by this time--perhaps at this very time--you are either dead
or in some extreme of peril. If I _knew_ that you would see
this, I could not write it. As it is, it gives me some
relief--it is my confessional. How often does a woman ever
confess her own, her inner and real heart? Never, I think,
to any man--certainly not to any living, present man.

I married; yes. It seemed the ordinary and natural thing to
do, a useful, necessary, desirable thing to do. I should not
complain--I did that with my eyes well opened and with full
counsel of my father. My eyes well opened, but my heart well
closed! I took on my duties as one of the species human, my
duties as wife, as head of a household, as lady of a certain
rank. I did all that, for it is what most women would do. It
is the system of society. My husband is content.

What am I writing now? Arguing, justifying, defending? Ah,
were it possible that you would read this and come back to
me, never, never, though it killed me, would I open my heart
to you! I write only to a dead man, I say--to one who can
never hear. I write